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Ode to Burberry

Ever since 2009, Burberry has always been a true pioneer and inspiration for digital marketing. It’s one of the few companies that fully immerses and embraces the digital world.

‘[Digital] is something that should never be an afterthought – it should never be a checklist that is something to do. Digital for me is not a project; digital is a way that we live. If you deal with it as a project, it will always be superficial.

-Christopher Bailey, CEO of Burberry’

It’s hard to imagine that this digital marketing genius is not from a marketing background at all. He was from creative background. He always openly admits that Burberry as being “as much a media-content company as a design company.”

Partnering with the right parties is like being with the cool gangs in High school. If all the cool kids carries an iPhone, iPhone is the cool must-have. (Ok, reality check, there was no iPhone when I was in high school. I grew up in an high school full with humble bookwarms. Good grades were cool and we wrote poems and essay for pastime. That explained my poor sense of style or complete lack of it when I was young)

Burberry makes their media content one step further by collaborating with right influensers.

By collaborating with the God Father of Street Style Snap – Scott Schuman, aka the Sartorialist, Art of Trench mini site was filled with artfully crafted fashion images. By leveraging on then already-famous, the Sartorialist, Art of trench created an exclusive “in-the-know’ feel that appealed to the luxury consumers

One of the finest example of Burberry’s strategic collaboration. By working with some of Britain’s finest musicians, fans can enjoy rare live acoustic performance directly from Burberry’s social platform.

The platform featured a series of short films of up and coming British musicians who have been hand-picked by Mr. Bailey, shot in scenic locations with the artists wearing Burberry clothing. The films bring a hip edge to the brand’s image. The project can attract a wider audience that enjoys other aspects of British pop culture. Don’t forget, these films are highly shareable content for social media.

Fashion shows used to be exclusvie and somewhat private for the “in-the-know’, Burberry invited fans to watch the show all together with social media. In 2013, they took one step further, by partnering with Apple’s then newly launched iPhone5S, with an enhanced filming function, to document every step of the way to the spring/summer 2014 fashion show.

Of course, the benefits were mutual. Both brands gained the buzz and praise they deserved by being innovative and visionary. No wonder Angela Ahrendtz gained the attention of Apple’s HR too.

Burberry Kisses lets Google Chrome and mobile users share “kisses” via a desktop camera or touchscreen devices. The kisses can then personalise, by adding a Burberry Beauty lip colour’, before sending it on. The “journey’ of each kiss is then ‘brought to life’ via a 3D animation using Google Earth and Streetview. The kiss actually travels. Not as impactful as Art of Trench or Acoustic, Kisses does give technology ‘a bit of heart and soul’, according to Mr. Bailey. It’s indeed a very cute idea.

3. Digitalized the in-store experience

No one can beat the London flagship store which was designed as a physical manifestation of the Burberry Website.

Burberry World Live

Real-life Bespoke – customers can engage with the products both online and in-person, customize their apparel and try on RFID-tagged items in front of a mirror that projects them onto videos

iPads – with complimentary iPads in hand, customers can relax on the couches as they browse through the products, view videos of clothing being worn by models, video videos and read social reviews. Customers can even pay through the iPad thought waiting in line at the check-out counter.

Burberry World Live also give customers the chances to attend events including gigs by the Acoustic artists, which are streamed online.

I’m sure Christopher Bailey would speak better himself.

4. Complementing social platform contents

Facebook – the Official Voice

•Facebook timeline is home to a plethora of pictures documenting Burberry fashion shoots and advertising its products

•Every single tweet includes either a video or an image, often of celebrities wearing Burberry clothes at social events.

•Very few links back to Burberry’s ecommerce site.

•Uses Twitter to promote and build its brand image, leaving it up to users to find their way to the online store.

•All the tweets are pre-planned marketing messages

•A separate feed for customer service – marketing messages and customer queries don’t get mixed up with one another.

TweekWalk

•Burberry live tweeted its runway show, providing Burberry Twitter fans with behind the scenes photos and rare insights into the fashion world.

•When static photos proved too passé for Burberry, it switched to animated gifs. The gifs brought the movement and life of a fashion show straight to fans, which is great if you ever wanted to see an endless loop of a model twirling in Burberry coat.

Instagram – Friendly Images

•Posts images that could have been taken by anyone with a smartphone, not advertising imageries

•Enlisted top Instagram photographers to generate buzz about the Brit Rhythm fragrance, using the #ThisIsBrit hashtag. People who received samples in the mail posted their special deliveries on Instagram, tagging @Burberry.

•Show London in its full glory with images of the brightly lit flagship store and Big Ben through the London mist.

Pinterest – Imageries Inspirations

Various Pin Boards for fashion inspiration

London focused Pinterest board pays homage to the city that gave birth to its trench coats with iconic images of the city. Perfect if you’ve ever wondered what London looks like through the Hudson Instagram filter.

Personalised messages for everyone who shared the image. Acted as a reward for engaging with the content and also helped create a personal attachment with the brand. It’s also likely that the recipients shared the new Images with their own social circles.

Handwritten note from Chris

Asset created for celebrating 10 million Facebook fans

Thematic Integrated Campaigns

Britain Weather

Everyone knows Brits are obsessed with weather especially when the whole world’s focus was in London during the Olympics. Tapping into this is fashion brand Burberry, which has created a summer ad campaign based on monitoring the vagaries of the British skies in billboards around the world, as well as on the Weather Channel….

The campaign includes digital billboards situated in major cities across the world, including London, Paris, New York and Hong Kong, which are fed live London-based weather content. Screens will be updated with imagery of the city and live temperature checks over the course of the day.

In addition, Burberry has partnered with the Weather Channel during the Olympics, providing all advertising on the Channel’s global iPhone/iPad apps, where it will also show imagery of London weather conditions.

My Ode to Burberry!

[The post hasn’t been properly quoted all the source yet. I’ll add up the reference part within a week).